When it comes to promoting your brand on social media, there are a couple of primary ways you can go about doing it: the organic approach, wherein you create posts yourself that rely on regular social media algorithms playing their part to get you noticed, or the paid approach, where you specifically promote posts using paid advertising means to push them towards your desired audience. That being said, there is more than one way to pay for your content to reach a wider group of potential consumers, namely post boosting and influencer whitelisting. If you don’t fully understand the difference between the two and want to know which approach is better for you, don’t worry: in this article, we’ll go over all the main points to help you distinguish between them and decide which one you should incorporate into your Instagram influencer marketing strategy.
What is post boosting?
Post boosting refers to the act of paying to further promote a piece of sponsored content from your page, or via an influencer you’ve partnered with. This can be done on your own brand’s social media channels by allocating a specific budget to a post you’ve already published to amplify it to a specific audience, or it can be done by granting budget to influencers who you’ve created sponsored content with – the partnered content you’ve worked together to create can then be boosted in order to be seen by more people that fit the particular demographic you want to target.
Boosting a post on Instagram, in general, will involve deciding on a budget amount, the length of time you’d like to boost the post for, and the audience you want to push the content to. In some cases, you can specify what you’d like to achieve with the promoted content, i.e. clicks, conversions, views, and so on.
What does whitelisting a post mean?
Influencer whitelisting on Instagram, on the other hand, is a slightly different approach to boosting content. In a nutshell, it involves reaching out to and gaining formal permission from influencers and content creators to make use of said influencer’s Instagram account (i.e. their content as well as their personal brand/social media handle) to run a form of paid advertising. Essentially, this gives you more control over your partnerships with influencers, as you will now be able to use ad managing software to boost content they post on their own pages directly.
This tactic means that the posts that are paid to be promoted will be shown under the influencer’s name, and not under that of the brand. In other words, audiences who view the post will see the influencer’s handle reflected on the post. It’s a unique approach as it allows brands a greater degree of control over posts and flexibility with how they are amplified.
Which approach is better – post boosting or whitelisting?
There is a range of considerations to take into account as each of these methods has a different approach and set of limitations. Typically though, it can be seen that post boosting is a more limiting tactic on the whole when compared to influencer whitelisting. Let’s take a look at a few criteria below.
Whitelisting avoids timeline and feed spamming
When a post is boosted, it will be shown and promoted to audiences in the same way as the original post was on the influencer’s social media feed. That is to say, these posts need to have been publicly published and form a part of either the influencer or your social media feed – it is once the post has been created and published as a ‘regular’ post that it can then be paid to be boosted thereafter. One of the benefits of influencer whitelisting is that posts can be created and amplified in the form of dark posts, meaning these ads do not form a part of the influencer’s social media feed. They will be shown explicitly as ads only and will appear on the Instagram timeline of the audience you are specifically targeting, freeing up the influencer’s feed and avoiding spamming their followers with promoted content on a consistent basis.
Whitelisting allows for greater customization of ads
When it comes to post boosting, you are limited in the sense that the post can only be promoted in the format in which it was created. This means that the copy and captions cannot be edited or changed at all – they need to be promoted as is. Influencer whitelisting however offers much more flexibility in this regard, giving you the ability to alter the copy of posts and try out different approaches to see what appeals to different audiences. You can run numerous versions of the same ad and track results, granting a greater degree of control over your campaign and allowing you to run A-B testing for learning purposes, too.
Whitelisting adds to social proof
Thanks to the nature of whitelisted content appearing on audiences’ timelines under the content creator’s name or handle, people will be seeing a name that they know and trust, and which has a solid reputation built up already. While boosted posts can involve partnering up with these creators, they are usually shown in your (the brand’s) name, as it would have been paid to be amplified directly from your social media account. Brands are typically less trusted and ‘personable’ to audiences, so these types of paid/promoted posts come across in a very typical advertising fashion to consumers. Influencers have the benefit of displaying a more human, relatable image, which makes content shown under their name more likely to be received favorably.
Audience targeting
A huge benefit for brands in using influencer whitelisting on Instagram is that, by directly controlling and running ads on the influencer’s account, they now have access to the influencer’s audiences. This meant that posts can be promoted to these audiences specifically, which is great for better locking down your target market. When boosting posts from your own social media channels, however, you are unfortunately limited to a differing set of audience tools and cannot specifically reach the audience that is linked directly to the influencer you are interested in.
Whitelisting or boosting – a quick comparison
Important tips for whitelisting relationships
If you’re already feeling convinced by the prospect of trying out influencer whitelisting in your Instagram influencer marketing strategy instead of traditional post boosting, there are a few things to keep in mind to make sure things run smoothly.
Trust is paramount to the entire relationship working, as the influencer is granting you access to their social media accounts and allowing you to capitalize on their name and handles. Make sure to clearly communicate with them throughout the process, keep expectations in check, and get everything in writing to make your partnership a successful one.
Finding the right influencers to work with will ensure that you get the results you’re hoping for. Take the time to do your research and ensure that the influencers’ audience lines up with your target consumers, in addition to making sure that the influencer accurately represents your brand’s messaging and values – especially since you will be directly associated with their name.
Make sure to take advantage of the benefits of whitelisting to reap its full potential. Trial various approaches with ads to find what works for different audiences so you can learn for next time, and don’t be afraid to post a range of variants, since these posts are ‘dark’ anyways.
Conclusion
Both post boosting and influencer whitelisting can have a spot in your influencer marketing strategy depending on what you aim to achieve, but when it comes to sheer flexibility, control, and functionality, influencer whitelisting is something that you shouldn’t ignore for your brand. With the right approach, this form of paid advertising could work wonders for your objectives and goals on Instagram, so don’t be afraid to incorporate it into your next campaign!
